There are characters who exist only because they provide the link to another character whom Vincent will need to rely upon later. This is a novel where the editor should have removed whole characters rather than merely the occasional, extraneous adjective, but unfortunately the story is held together by networking. Once we have followed Vincent around for several chapters, we may wish that the forlornly old-fashioned doctor, or the eccentric local art expert had been given the job of hero instead.Ĭharacters come and go, but the two who are designated for rescue at the end of the novel – Vincent’s teenaged son and Edward’s ex-girlfriend (who is seemingly just roped in because she is the nearest female character to hand) – drift into the story so late that we cannot become sufficiently attached to them to care whether they live or die. He is almost comically unfazed by the death of his right-hand man Edward Merriam, and he scarcely gives Edward a second thought after discovering his body. The art magnate Vincent Pearson eventually steps forward as the hero, but he is not massively bright, emotionally sophisticated, nor even particularly likeable. To put it bluntly, Masterton does not care about his characters and neither do we.
The weakest feature of Family Portrait is indeed the characterisation. Yet the uninformed reader of Family Portrait may not guess that Masterton is actually a British writer, originally born in Edinburgh, as his novel delivers a faithful pastiche of King’s trademark rural Americana, complete with such stock small-town characters as the fruity family doctor and the sheriff who must do his duty. Stylistically, Masterton is more readable than Stephen King, and he is more of a laugh than Peter Straub. One reading Family Portrait in ignorance of the author may discern a hand just as distinct and accomplished as those of some of the bigger names of the period.
Graham Masterton‘s 1985 horror novel Family Portrait has been recently reissued for the Amazon Kindle, providing an opportunity to once again savour the old school flavours of the 1970s and 80s.
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